


Torrid Affair

by notenoughcoffee



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-12 08:44:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19225675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenoughcoffee/pseuds/notenoughcoffee
Summary: Anne is concerned about Katherine's behavior lately. She recruits Aragon to help her get to the bottom of it.





	1. Chapter 1

Anne, with a rarely displayed aptitude for espionage, regarded Katherine carefully. There was something peculiar about her lately. For a girl who had always been clever if a little off with the fairies, she had been especially absentminded lately, preoccupied in a world entirely her own. Ordinarily, this was not a matter that Anne would concern herself with; however, she had been overcome with nostalgia at the look on Katherine’s face when Anne had broken one of her reveries that morning, wide-eyed innocence and so incredibly young. Exactly how Anne remembered her before.

Something about that look made Anne anxious. It was a feeling she was unable to shake all day.

She had been dwelling on that sweet, naive face while sitting at the kitchen table when it walked through the door again, giggling to herself, and asked, “Are you hungry?”

“No,” Anne gestured to the pile of empty plates in front of her. “Thanks though.” She made the decision to get to the bottom of what was making her typically bright, sharp-witted cousin so incredibly daft.

Donning the role of detective, she began to make several mental notes about the girl’s behavior as she went about her mundane tasks of preparing her dinner and winding down for the evening. With an uncharacteristic degree of quietness, Anne observed as Katherine hummed a gentle tune, not even audible enough to discern the song while she pressed the lever down on the toaster. Hiding behind a sip from her teacup, Anne stared as the corners of Katherine’s mouth twitched upward as she stirred the apricot jam in the jar waiting for her toast to pop up. Keeping her cup raised in both hands and pretending to be fascinated by the pattern on the side, she scrutinized Katherine’s barely contained dance moves, her hips swaying to whatever song it was she was humming. When she bit her bottom lip to keep the grin from breaking across her face and didn’t jump at the toaster’s spring despite her having done so every time anyone had used the appliance in her presence, Anne had to restrain every muscle in her body from leaping out of her chair, shaking her by the shoulders, and berating her until she spills every secret she has had the audacity to withhold.

Astonishingly, Anne kept still. She didn’t know she could be so inconspicuous. She had to check her pride, knowing that her ego had the potential to overrun the required discretion for this job.

Katherine gave her a little nod as she took her plate to the living room, and away from Anne’s inquisitive gaze. Leaving her dirty dishes on the table, risking the reprimand likely to come from Jane should she find them, Anne rose to follow her. 

She tiptoed her way to the entryway into the living room after a respectable amount of time had passed to keep up the appearance of being nonchalant, but before she could enter the room, she was wrenched backward by the collar of her shirt. Struggling to keep on her feet, she backtracked her steps, dragged in the direction of the kitchen table once more. 

She wasn’t the least bit surprised to see the face of her attacker as she was unceremoniously dropped back into the chair she had only recently vacated. Aragon. Fuming, she pointed to the dishes without saying a word. 

“I’ll get them later. I need to keep an eye on Katherine,” she whispered, eyeing the door to make sure the object of her investigation did not hear the commotion.

Aragon turned to look at the door before returning her ire on Anne. “I don’t care what you’re doing. You can go back to irritating people after you clean up your mess,” temper flared, she spoke at full volume.

“Quiet! She’ll hear,” Anne hissed in frustration. Of course it would be someone else blowing her cover after she had done such first-rate work. 

“Hear what? Your big gob? Trust me, it’s more concerning when we don’t hear you going off.”

Anne hadn’t considered that. Had she drawn more attention to herself by being too good at reconnaissance? Gathering her plates, she thought about her approach.

“What do you think is wrong with Katherine?”

“Could you at least try and keep it down a little? She’s only in the next room.”

“No.”

Sighing, Anne ran the tap hoping to drown out Aragon’s voice. “She’s being weird. Something’s just not right.”

Aragon was quiet for a moment, contemplative. “Now that you mention it, she has been a little distracted lately. I know you’ve got some harebrained idea. Go on. What is it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out!”

“Do you think she’s seeing someone? She’s been on her phone a lot more than usual.”

Anne didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of that. Katherine had been staring at her phone nearly every time she had seen her the last week or so. She was miles away when they did talk, and she seemed to be more cheerful than usual, always with a stupid smirk on her face. If she had feelings for someone, it would explain an awful lot.

“If she is, I want to be smack dab in the middle of their torrid, passionate love affair.”

“Ew, Anne. She’s your cousin. That is disgusting,” Aragon’s face contorted. “And wasn’t once enough?”

“Not like that! I want to know what’s going on. All the details. And mate, there was nothing torrid or passionate in your love affair.”

“It was a marriage not an affair you cretin.”

“I’m right though,” she gave Aragon a smug smile and flicked water at her face.

***

Katherine had been so enthralled by her phone she almost did not see Anne or Aragon creeping into the room. Wondering why they were being so strange, she looked up from her screen to glower at them. No good ever came from the two of them working together. 

Anne threw herself down on the cushion next to her, rattling her so much she nearly knocked the plate holding the remains of her dinner from the arm of the couch. Thankfully, she recovered it before it fell. She didn’t want to explain to Jane why there was a sticky mess embedded in the carpet when Jane had explicitly asked that food be kept in the kitchen. 

In her panic to rescue her toast, she had dropped her phone. Both of the girls dove for it, forcing Katherine to dodge out of the way of their flailing limbs. 

“Who is it, Kitty?” Anne screeched.

“What?”

“Who have you been talking to?” Aragon asked as she gained possession of the phone. 

Katherine could see her scrolling through her messages, Anne pulling desperately on her arm to see too. “No one?”

“Check her other folders. They have those secret communication apps that look like other things now!” Anne yelled.

“What are you on about?”

“We know you’re seeing someone, Kat. Why are you keeping them a secret?”

“Because there’s no one to keep a secret about!”

“Why haven’t you put your phone down in days, then? And why haven’t you been able to focus? You’re always bloody smiling now too! Who is it?”

Katherine, tired of the inquisition already, wrestled her phone from their grip. She had to throw her entire weight on top of them, falling to the floor, and rolling away to get it back, but they didn’t put up too much of a fight once it left their hands. She swiped through her apps before finding the one she was looking for and holding up the loading screen for the other two to see.

Anne immediately recognized the song that began to play as the quiet tune Katherine had been humming while making her dinner. 

“It’s just a game! You pick out a pet and you solve puzzles to earn fun things for it. Look, she has a dress now,” Katherine opened the wardrobe to show off all of her prizes. 

“You...You’re playing with a fake dog?” Aragon asked incredulously.

“Yeah. It’s really fun. I keep losing track of time and playing half the night. That’s why I’ve been so tired.”

“A fake dog is making you that happy?” Anne, still in disbelief, eyed her with skepticism.

Aragon helped Katherine back to her feet, “We’ll let you get back to your game then.” Her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. More so mortified that she had let Anne get in her head than her behavior in the last few minutes. She grabbed Anne’s arm to try and pull her back to the kitchen.

“No really though. A stupid virtual dog turned you into an idiot?” Anne tugged her arm out of Aragon’s grasp. “We need to talk to Jane. This isn’t normal.”

“Leave her alone. Let’s go.” Aragon commanded, taking a fistful of Anne’s shirt and hair and dragging her out of the room.

Katherine watched them go, Anne’s continued protests and assertions that she needed to get help echoing through the room, before opening up her messages and tapping out the events that had just transpired to Cleves. 

  
  



	2. Last Line of Defense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne is unsatisfied with the conclusion of her investigation.

Aragon’s knees gave out beneath her. She collapsed face first and sideways onto her bed, legs still dangling off the edge. The energy required to draw her curtains, pull the duvet down, or even get herself completely into the bed had long escaped her. Blindly reaching out, she snagged a pillow and clutched it to her chest. This was where she was going to meet her end. She could feel it in the ache in each muscle in her body. She had never felt exhaustion at the level she was feeling now. 

Only two days had passed since her common sense had abandoned her and she had joined Anne’s half-formed, ill-judged plan to accost Katherine to ascertain the cause of her strange behavior. If you could even call her behavior strange. The girl had the cheek to be happy and somewhat sidetracked. This was undeniably justification for a full-scale investigation and confrontation. In retrospect, Aragon could not find the point where her logic had flown out of the window and Anne’s plan of attack took shape as a viable option. 

The result of their pounce and scroll exonerated Katherine from all suspicion that she had taken up some secret relationship -- at least as far as Aragon was concerned. Absolved of potential wrongdoing, the impertinence of keeping details of a romance from Anne, Aragon had thought that Anne would allow the girl some peace. Although Aragon was grateful that Katherine had found something to occupy her time and that brought her joy, Anne was left unsatisfied with the evidence.

Somehow, that undesirable outcome meant that the inquiry was still open, and even more perplexing, it meant that Aragon was still involved in Anne’s asinine plans.

The two days since then had felt like two years.

Keeping pace with Anne was enough to run her into the ground; however, the task was augmented with the additional burden of reining in her outlandish ideas. Minimizing the potential physical damages Anne was willing to undertake, let alone hindering her as a general nuisance, took every bit of strength and stamina she had. 

Aragon regretted dragging Anne back into the kitchen to clean up her mess. If she had only done the dishes for her she would have never become involved. Now that she had, she felt responsible. She couldn’t allow Anne to run about unchecked. It was down to her to be Katherine’s last line of defense.

And now, after another grueling day of chasing Anne about to give Katherine some semblance of privacy, she had a few hours before Anne would wake up to start anew in her endeavors. Sleep overtook her within moments, legs still dangling from the edge of the bed.

***

Morning came much to soon. Aragon had set an alarm for just a few minutes before the time Anne usually rolled out of bed to leave behind a wake of destruction in her path. In spite of her best efforts, when Aragon was finally able to sit up, cramped from her awkward position and still depleted of energy, she could hear Anne’s clomping feet as they roamed the house. 

Opening her door just enough to let the light from the hallway shine through, she saw Anne at Katherine’s room on her hands and knees, face pressed against the floor, peaking through the sliver of space between it and the door. 

“Oh, for the love of God. It is too early for this,” she murmured to herself, rubbing her eyes and resting her head against the doorjamb to gather her strength. “Why, Anne?” She asked loud enough to be heard this time, still not lifting her head from the cool wooden surface of the frame.

“Shh! She’s talking to someone!” Anne waved a dismissive hand at her without picking her head up from the floor.

“And?” She knew the answer to her question, but she was trapped in the same script she had been reading from since first signing on to Anne’s exploit. 

“And what if she’s talking to the person she’s seeing?” 

Aragon was rescued from her next line when Katherine’s door whipped open. Anne, frozen to the spot on the hardwood floor, did not even flinch. Katherine took an indifferent step over her prone figure, and carried on down the hallway. “And what if she’s talking to Jane about having you committed,” she threw over her shoulder.

“I have a right to know! We are family! Families tell each other these things!” Anne, still kneeling, shrieked at Katherine’s back.

“Oh? Do families also partake in stalking, intimidation, harassment, and borderline abuse?” Katherine called back as she descended the stairs. 

“That’s literally the definition of a family, Katherine! It’s what we’re here for!” Anne’s earnest face looked to Aragon for support.

Her only response was the sound of the front door slamming behind Katherine.

Anne huffed as she sat back, looking up at Aragon for reassurance again. Regardless of finding no encouragement, her face set in determination to rectify her lack of success, and her eyes glimmered with mischief as she calculated her next moves.

“How many times has it come to this?” Weary and on the verge of standing down and letting Anne run rampant, Aragon lowered herself to the girl’s level on the floor, wishing she could sprawl across the surface and sleep for a week. 

“You knew I was never good at maths, don’t test me.”

***

Having sufficiently consumed her required intake of caffeinated beverages, Aragon was feeling the slightest bit more human after her rough start of a morning. She at least had the energy to make an effort to convince Anne that she needed to try a different tack, although she should have saved her breath. It fell on deaf ears. 

When Katherine arrived back from her respite with a subtle smile fixed on her face, Anne’s interest was renewed ten-fold.

“Where were you just then?” She berated her the second she walked through the door.

“Out.”

“With who?”

“Myself,” Katherine’s terse answers were impassive, giving none of her true feelings away. 

“Yourself and…”

“The bloody Queen.”

“Ain’t that Aragon’s kid?” Anne dodged the hand that immediately swung for her face. “Oh my God, chill out. I’m kidding!” She cowered a bit at the vicious, glowering look Aragon gave her. “I love you?” She offered at an attempt at amends.

“I don’t care anymore,” Aragon scoffed and threw her hands up in exasperation. Infuriated, she walked out of the room, relinquishing all responsibility she felt to limit the damage Anne caused. Her ire lessened when she saw that Katherine had taken advantage of the opening and escaped back to her room. 

Her reprieve, however, was far too short. Anne followed her into the living room, spouting off about her next strategy. 

***

Aragon was dragging her feet, done in and ready for bed, when her arm was seized and she was wrenched into a room. 

Anne. 

_ Of course _ , she thought.

“She left it out!”

“Who left what out?” Aragon didn’t even want to know.

“Katherine! Her phone!”

“What good is that going to do? She has it passcoded.” 

Anne raised an eyebrow at her and flashed a devilish grin, “That’s not a problem. I know all of your passcodes.”

Aragon should have anticipated this. It was entirely predictable that Anne would have sussed out and memorized all of their passcodes. She knew it would be senseless to bother to change it, too. It would only be a matter of time before Anne memorized the new one. 

She watched with dismay as Anne effortlessly unlocked Katherine’s phone. The blaring sound of her virtual pet game emanating from tiny speakers made both women jump. Anne made a derisive noise before leaving the game and scrolling through the phone uninterrupted. 

Aragon watched as her face crumpled from exuberance to utter disappointment.

“I can’t believe there’s actually nothing here. She really is only playing with a stupid fake dog, and apparently just talking to Cleves. Not even an incognito communication app to be found,” she whispered with such sadness that Aragon couldn’t help but reach out to pat her arm in comfort. 

“Why don’t you download Tinder for her? Help her out a bit?” She offered, regret instantaneously overwhelming her.

“I knew there was a reason I hadn’t dropped you from this investigation.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "How many times has it come to this?" "You know I was never good at maths, don't test me."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne goes too far.

Katherine had grown accustomed to finding her phone in Anne’s possession over the next several days. It had occurred so many times that her outrage at the indignation had melted away into something more akin to mild irritation at the inconvenience. 

For a time, she refused to let her device out of her sight. She kept it tucked tightly in a pocket, under a pillow, or in her hand, but needs must when performing in barely there costumes. When Anne began picking the locks to gain access to it, Katherine had to let it go. She no longer cared about where she put her phone down. She knew where she needed to go to find it. Anne’s inability to keep her volume at a reasonable level always led her straight to it.

Interventions led by Jane and Parr had been to no avail. Mediation between the parties had only amplified the behavior they had tried to quash. Both women, irritated by Katherine’s repeated claims that her phone had been stolen yet again, had bowed out of the fight, leaving Katherine to fend for herself. 

Katherine had also given up on changing her passcode. After Anne had cracked it the first three times, she knew she had lost that battle. She wasn’t necessarily hiding anything on her phone; however, the invasion of her privacy set her nerves on edge. Her skin crawled with the idea that someone was trawling through her conversations, pictures, and files. Her stomach clenched at the thought that Anne had full access to all of her social media accounts. She tried not to dwell on it for too long to keep her anxiety at bay. 

Eventually, she became desensitized to the intrusion on her personal affairs.

That was until several weeks after Anne had first stolen her phone. All of her pent up feelings, dissociated to keep her numb, had surfaced in one moment, at one sight. 

What had turned her into sweating, tense mess was seeing Catherine of Aragon in on Anne’s scheme as well. She had walked into their dressing room to retrieve her phone and found Catherine peering over Anne’s shoulder as she typed something. Both girls had been giggling uncontrollably. 

“Give me that,” she demanded, reaching to snatch the phone out of Anne’s hand, but Catherine beat her to it. 

Guarding the phone from Katherine’s view, she swiped several times.

“It’s alright. It’s already done,” Anne piped in.

Catherine hesitated a moment before holding out the phone with a smug, “Here,” for Katherine to take.

“I expected better of you, Catherine. Her I understand, but you?” She didn’t even attempt to hide the wounded look on her face conveying how deeply she was hurt by Catherine’s betrayal. She had come to expect underhanded dealings by Anne, but the lofty pinnacle of morality that Catherine claimed to be a part of was directly opposed to such a breach of trust. 

Katherine felt violated. Alarmed, she grumbled, “What were you doing?” She knew any answer they could provide would not mollify her. 

“Don’t look so glum, Kitty! You’ll find out soon enough!” Anne appeared downright euphoric.

Holding her phone in her hand, she watched the display darken before going black, her reflection in the glass marred by frustrated tears.

***  
Katherine walked home alone that night, giving the other girls a wide breadth of space and time. She fell further and further behind until they were long out of sight. Walking past the pub just at the top of their street, she heard Anne’s elated cheers and felt herself being tugged inside the dimly lit bar.

“You might not have noticed, but we’ve had something of a small project in the works.” Anne, delighted with herself, dragged Katherine deeper into the pub.

“If your project was anything other than finding yourself on the sorry end of a swordsman’s swing again, I would call it unsuccessful,” Katherine only half-joked, feeling an unfamiliar and entirely out-of-character desire to take up a more murderous path in life.

Anne wasn’t listening. “-and now he’s that one there. Right under that horrid lamp!”

Katherine gawked at her. “Who is where now?”

“Your date!”

 

“My what?”

“I never took you for an idiot. I mean, not really. But now I might have to,” Anne rubbed at her temples and began to speak slowly, as if Katherine were incapable of understanding her words. “Your. Date.”

“Why do I have a date?”

“Because me and Catherine set you up! Weren’t you listening to me?”

“Do I ever?”

Anne leaned her head against the wooden back of a booth, not caring that it was sticky with an unidentifiable substance, and bounced her head against it. “Look. He’s right there!”

“I’m not sure what you expect me to do.” Katherine had no clue how to proceed with this scenario, nor did she have any interest in the man below the gaudy lamp in a cheap pub. 

“I don’t know. Maybe start with ‘Hi. I’m Katherine.’”

She looked around to find Catherine smiling broadly at her from a booth in the far corner and gesturing in the man’s direction with her drink. Katherine presumed she was trying to communicate that she wanted her to buy the man a drink. Making her way past the tables, Katherine set off in the direction of the man before making a brisk escape through the fire exit at the side of the pub. Never more glad to be wearing her flats, she made a break for it through the narrow alley knowing Anne would try to cut her off from the front doors, picking her way over glass shards and leaping over puddles shining in the moonlight. 

Anne nearly had her in reach when she emerged from the alley, but fortune, it seemed, had been on her side. Nothing but the wind from Anne’s hand grasping for her touched her as she gave everything she had into getting home.

***

A warm shower did her wonders. Katherine was able to calm her frazzled nerves and her simmering desire for homicide cooled. With her hair wrapped in a towel and I’m a warm set of pajamas on, Katherine re-emerged from the bathroom feeling refreshed and able to find the humor in the scenario she had escaped from.

She was turning the handle to enter her bedroom when she was once again yanked off her equilibrium by Anne.

“I didn’t want you to be unprepared?” 

“Unprepared? God, Anne, what now?”

Anne didn’t elaborate, choosing instead to pull her into an awkward hug and tucking a small wrapper into her waistband. Katherine pushed her off just as quickly as she had latched onto her, and Anne disappeared into her own bedroom. 

Pulling the small package out of her waistband, Katherine’s nose scrunched in disgust at the realization that she was holding a condom. Alleviating some of her feelings, she chucked it at Anne’s door before returning to the solace of her bedroom.

Throwing her door open, she was ready to collapse into her bed and forget about how the day had unfolded, but was held to the spot by the sight in front of her.

Her bed was occupied.

By the man from the pub.

Katherine stood, wide-eyed, staring at the sight, unable to react. 

“Hey beautiful,” he greeted her, lifting the duvet up as if the sight of him unclothed beneath it would entice her to join him.

The action was all she needed to remind her limbs how to function. She spun on her heel, storming out of her room. Anne’s door rustled a bit as the occupants of the room shoved each other to get a look through the inch opening, Katherine threw the full force of her weight into it, enjoying the cracking sound it made as it bounced off both of the women’s heads.

“He took off his pants. I’m leaving. He’s your problem.” Katherine deadpanned, unable to enjoy the sight of both girls clutching their heads in pain before she went to seek shelter in Anna’s room.

***

Catherine had to admit, setting Katherine up on a date had not been one of her wisest or kindest ideas that she had made in recent memory. She hadn’t expected the events to unfold in the manner in which they had, and the resulting anger and humiliation that Katherine felt was undeserving. Guilt had certainly settled in, though that was well after the annoyance of trying to dismiss Katherine’s spurned stud. 

They had yet to find where he had left his pants. 

Anne was already babbling about the next phase of her plan, and Catherine couldn’t help but feel the irritation creeping back up her spine. “Haven’t you given up yet? Please, stop embarrassing yourself,” she begged, holding her head in her hands. The lump just above her hairline a painful reminder of what happens when she lets Anne get too carried away.

“If rather be dead," Anne stated matter of fact. 

“Then I have some good news for you,” Catherine mumbled, not sure if it would be herself of Katherine that dealt the killing blow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I'd rather be dead. "Then I have some good news for you."

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "I want to be smack dab in the middle of their torrid, passionate love affair."


End file.
